IN THE BEGINNING.
Valerie L. Mossman Gordon College Wenham, Massachusetts

From: JASA 29(June 1977): 49-51.

I
In the end Man created the heaven and earth,
For the spirit of God was asleep
in the void;
There was nothing awake to put life in the deep
Until oceans and
chemists began to conceive.
And the day came to pass, through the workings of
years,
That the waters were fruitful with algae and slime.
Man
pondered creation,
and knew it was good,
Though the process had barely begun to produce
Every animal
and plant that he knew would result.
So Man let the years pass.

He remembered a god
He'd known living in darkness before earth became
More than
chaos, before life was made for the void;
He decided to seek him, and give him
a name
The one Man knew best, and none else but his own.
Thus the god
Man created
was made in Man's image,
Most immanent, gracing the earth he had made
With his
presence, for the god was a product of Man:
But a creature himself.
The creation
made the god
And consented to keep him.

II
With the increase of Man
Came an increase of knowledge, and science made known
That with diligent study, experiments and theories
Would produce all
the details
of how Man had done it
And Man-god, creator, would be proven king;
Though the
pleas of some people rang out through the labs
In defense of a God not asleep,
but forgotten,
Of a God who'd not only made earth and her fruit
But
had also invented
the concept of man,
And created all beasts.

But their wisdom was lost.
The Man-god retained his position of dominance
And
plants, beasts, and birds all accepted his rule.
Cast out all
pretenders, he ordered
his followers,
Allow them no voice in affairs of this world.
And resuming his
lordship of gametes and zygotes
He continued the process of multiplication.
In
the way of all kingdoms which legislate statutes,
He governed their
fruitfulness,
and recorded as law
Thus: Only the fit shall survive.

III
In violent revolution,
Coup d'etat, and dissolution, several subjects conspired
To impeach this, their king. Setting forth martial strategy
They
built a theology
based on eye-witness account
Of a man who had seen all creation in visions,
A
man, one of few, who had loved an old God.
They consulted their
Bibles, interpreted
Genesis
(The name of the book the eye-witness had written),
And they
left Man-god's
kingdom forever to live
In a country called Christian.

They commenced to hold meetings
And drafted up armies armed with
doctrine, theology,
And books of King James; they waged bloody battle
Backed by literal readings,
fundamentally sure
Of the truth of their cause. But the Man-god joined arms;
He
struck back at the Christian defectors and traitors
To his creaturely rule over
plant, beast, and bird.
Though the Christians fought brave with their weapons
of straw,
Stout of heart and sincere, they were lost in the war: The
Man-god had
won.

IV
In true manly fashion
The Man-god considered his foes, the weak Christians,
A
threat of the past. He reigned in the confidence
That this minor variant of man
that was Christian
Would have to succumb to the law of his land:
And only the
fit would survive. He continued to rule;
But the Christians weren't dead. While
their forces regrouped
And the wounded were healed, came the reckoning sought
By the creature called Man: and only the fit had survived
This first
battle.

The leaders of Christians
Saw the need of new weapons to replace
swords of straw
That the literalists had used. So in place of their shields
Made of cardboard,
were issued bright Bibles of steel.
No more would the faulty interpreters cause
The destruction of Christians by making straw weapons.
Understanding was great-the
most fit had survived,
And adapted to training with the thought and intent
Of
their God, who had meant to give principles,
not Cardboard-clad fundament.

V
When the Christians were ready
And strong in their faith, no
Man-god's interpreter
Could challenge their weapon; with the power of the God-man
No Christian could
fail. The soldiers warred fiercely,
The Man-god was mighty; but mightier still
Was the Sword of the Lord of the Christians, who found
That no
Man-worshiper could
tarnish their bright Bibles' steel,
But must fall before the image of God found
in Christ
As revealed by the followers of God, the Creator;
Their
creaturely king

Could do nothing but fail.
The Creator has always been stronger than creature;
No matter that creaturely mind has forgotten
The truth of the
eye-witness account
found in Genesis
Of one who had seen all creation through vision.
The image of
Man found in Man-god is tinsel;
Thus, rightly dividing the Word of
the Lord
Leads
to victory for Christians, who glorify the God-man,
The Christ who is
named Jesus
who rules over all.
Interpretations are made out of straw. (1977)